There was an item on the news this morning about borrowing by local councils. One observer reckons it's far too high. Councils used to use sinking funds for capital projects, now they borrow against these funds. A spokesman came on to defend the council saying they used very sophisticated methods to control the debt and some councils had lazy balance sheets - they actually needed more debt.

I'm just a simple soul (it was all those "sophisticated" borrowers that got us into this financial jam). I see only that if you borrow money, you have to pay it back. With interest, so that means you pay more, or rather the taxpayers do. My rates have gone up a lot since the sophisticates took over the council.

Yes I know, you'll save money in the long run because the return on assets is greater than the cost of borrowing. I'll believe next time i see a council project come in under budget. Somehow the cost always requires more borrowing than anticipated and up go the rates again. If these financial clever clogs want to play financial geniuses, they can do it with their own money, not public funds.

I'm grumpy, can you tell I just got my property tax bill?